EXCLUSIVE: Marco Wyss – a Professor of International History and Security – has said that conscription wouldn’t be a bad idea for the UK, but not in the way many would think
Britain could bring conscription in – but not in the same way many would assume. With the world seemingly teetering from one war-inducing crisis to the next on an almost daily basis, many have turned to talk of boosting the UK’s armed forces by way of conscription.
Early this week Mike Martin, the Liberal Democrat MP for Tunbridge Wells, made such a claim and said there’s “certainly more than a 50% chance we’ll be involved in a war before 2030”.
The former British Army officer who served multiple tours of Afghanistan confirmed that we “would need to conscript” in order for Britain to defend itself properly.
However, speaking exclusively to the Daily Star, Marco Wyss – a Professor of International History and Security – confirmed that it could be an option for the UK . . . just in a slightly different way.
Rather than calling up everyone aged 18 and over, for example, he said we could follow a different model in the same way Sweden has done.
He said: “You would have to readjust the whole organization of the armed forces – I think for as long as we’re in peace time a country of the size of Britain does not need to move necessarily to conscription.
“What would potentially be interesting, however, what I could see would be more realistic would be a start introducing the kind of laws that would allow you to have conscription but then have something more of a selective conscription, so only a certain amount of people would be conscripted and largely on a voluntary basis.
“So that’s something that Sweden is doing – they, in the early 2010s, suspended conscription but then in 2014 after Crimea, reintroduced conscription but not in the old traditional sense that every male of a certain age has to serve at least a certain amount of time . . . but more selective and I think that would potentially be an option.
“What I think is important is that the army especially needs dramatic investment – we’re not talking here about Cold War mass armies, but it needs to be substantially bigger.
“The navy has huge recruitment problems, so they have to be addressed, and I’m not certain that the outsourcing to private companies of recruitment is the right way forward.”
The model used by Sweden, which joined NATO last year, essentially comprises of recruits being hand picked for skills and ability. Out of 100,000 eligible in 2018, in 4,000 people were called up – just 4% of the available pool.
The UK last had conscription in in 1960, although it took a further three years for all conscripts to finish their service due to deferral issues. And while many of the current generation would shirk in horror at conscription being reintroduced in any form, Professor Wyss said that it could actually be “very good” for the UK.
“Conscription can be very good because of course you can draw on a wider pool of talent,” he explained.
“Professional armed forces can draw on very good people who join the armed forces for family, regimental traditions, ambitions, dedication, patriotism.
“There are, however, also people who join the armed forces because it’s one of the few career options available – conscription would thus allow (the army) to go beyond such limitations, but it would be very complicated and it would also of course come with huge economic and trade-offs to introduce conscription because you would pull out people from the workforce, at least temporarily.”
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